millennia

Including the 1820 readings, how much heavy industry was there around then? Surely the people taking the measurements weren't so thick as to do them near to a known source of CO2 - as they were looking for CO2? Or are these far enough back to claim their methods were so inaccurate they were off by as much as 50%, and always on the high side? The 1940s peak certainly stands out and is too quick, agreed. I'd like to see what the differences were in samples around this time and if the readings are attributable to just one researcher. God knows if I'll ever find that data though With regard to measurment sites, Mauna Loa being next to an active volcano doesn't seem the brightest location either. I've been to the Big Island and their local weather is so affected by the volcano they even have their own word - VOG - for the volcanic smog that regularly covers the island!

Well I can certainly be caught citing data through a paper by Beck, but I wasn't referring to any assumptions made by him rather the actual readings taken since the 19th century regarding chemical assay values for CO2 as the background data It's not Beck I point at but the list of names of the people that took the measurements. Chemical Assay should have an accuracy within 3%, epecically when repeated, and although this is not as accurate as modern sampling methods to just discount the whole process because it does not fit with a "stable" 290ppm pre-industrial value that suddenly increased in the 20th Centrury is a bit rich. I'll bet if I only showed the rise from 1950 to present (and the fact it follows pretty closely to the accepted values) it would be "great graph" the "proves the point". As soon as you go back before 1945 it's a load of rubbish and can't possibly be right - how typical. Of course I can't explain it's fluctuations, that's my point! Data points from chemical assay during these periods appear in the IPCC reports but mysteriously only the ones below 300ppm. I would have expected all the data to appear and then the accuracy could be discussed in context of all the data. How can you trust anything when it is manipulated, and if constant CO2 growth is such a slam dunk certainty why manipulate the data at all? This is why I remain so sceptical, the science should be cut and dried and not have to be fiddled with to emphasise a point.

So what do we do, take an axe to lots of fridges? When you get articles basically stating that the effects of trying to clear up a previous mess will invigorate another one it's enough to make you give up entirely. The ozone hole was quite a rapid development that will take a lot of time to be reversed, and was also a great example of a human screw up that can have very wide ranging if not totally planetary consequences. However should this latest theory hold any water any effect will be the far side of the latest solar minima so there are more pressing things to concentrate on - and there's sod all we can do about it anyway except open up the ozone hole again. Great to see an article that didn't blame CO2 for a change though.

Yes, we couldn't possibly burn all that fossil fuel and not put CO2 into the atmosphere, you have to be on the far side of the non GW camp to deny even that - it just makes sense the CO2 has to go somewhere. However chemical assay and even ice core records show CO2 concentrations up to 500ppm in the last 200 years, I'm afraid to say the IPCC view of 290ppm stable concentration in pre industrial times is just another "modification" (made by excluding all the data points they didn't agree with) so they can make a hockey stick graph and frighten babies with it . This would put 380ppm within natural variability, which masks what we have actually put into the atmosphere ourseleves and makes it a lot harder to quantify than just deducting 290ppm. What makes you think the rainforest will die when there is more heat and CO2? Again only computer models that have dubious data in the first place say this and there are bound to be adjustments to these in the future. If there is one thing that is definitely anthropogenic it is rainforest loss, and it ain't anything to do with CO2 or temperature....

Hmmm, so I actually have contrarian views to some non AGW types by thinking the climate is stable - just goes to show it's not a polarised arguement. To me an Ice Age is just a readjustment to a new equilibrium, which suggests stability not instability. Think of a plane, inherently unstable planes like Spitfires and Typhoons have to be constantly tweaked and adjusted to stay in the air - let go and you crash almost instantly. A stable aircraft correctly trimmed will stay pretty much at altitude and on couse when you're not even at the controls. From that I see the earth's climate as stable - it doesn't need tweaking. Good because there does seem to be a lot of contrary evidence to AGW published by climate scientists that is just dismissed this way, which makes you wonder how you can get the point across. Glad you are more open

Just spent 10 mins answering this and then the post stuffed and I lost it all Ok, I had a strong interest in meteorology/climatolgy at Uni when doing physics and although not part of the syllabus a lot of my work with gases, energy, etc concentrated on this because I was interested. This is where I first met Mr Beer and have only recently become reaquainted when a poster on another forum cited the logarithmic effect of CO2 heat absorbtion as a reason why we were going to turn into Venus in 50 years in other words he got the graph upside down. I set him straight but he was such a dribbling GW disaster fanatic all I got back was abuse. Luckily weirdos like that are absent on these fora. To me Beer's Law is a prime example of basic and agreed Physics showing the inherent stability of the climate on Earth as it must actually be, otherwise we'd have had a catastrophe a long time ago. Simple findings like this may explain 90% of the system, and then the climate scientists need to a board full of equations and many years experience to find the other 10% - it becomes exponentially harder to detertime the truth the closer you get to it. Probably why Gore has such an easy time as he's often nowhere near it. Anyway this reads nowhere near as well as the last post I lost so I'm going to leave it there, but I have one question in return; if I did back up my statement with climate scientists how many would it take before they were not labelled as just on the payroll of oil companies?

Because there's too much money at stake? Have we ever had a scientific debate of this magnitude with so many billion $ riding on it? This is why the debate has become unscientific, too many people on the gravy train (obviously not pointing any fingers on this forum, I mean research grants, carbon trading, etc.). Sometimes the simplistic approach is closer to the mark than you might think. If you apply Beer's Law to observed values and extrapolate you could argue that by using real world observations you are already including background feedback, both positive and negative, as the resultant temperatures so far would have reacted to the CO2 concentration. Therefore even assuming CO2 is the driver of climate the logarithmic decay of Beer's law leads to a natural stability and it would be impossible to induce a temperature increase of more than 2C as we just couldn't produce that amount of CO2 and keep it in the atmosphere - I'm talking > 2000ppm here. Of course when you take the observation that CO2 reacts to temperature the dampening effect of Beer's Law becomes even more pronounced. No, you cannot heat up the planet by anywhere near what the IPCC claim without extra heat input from the Sun, to suggest so is to suggest that the Earth's climate system is inherently unstable and likely to fly off to disaster with the slightest push - whereas the climate system is actually inherently stable and takes major influences like Sun output to make any meaningful change, and even then because of it's stability it just finds a new equilibrium.

Like scientists never get it wrong, we don't constantly get bombarded with the latest findings that say we have to live a certian way or shorten our lives, only to be told 10 months later that we should do the exact opposite? In the US it's now almost impossible to get funding to research climate change unless you are in the CO2 AGW camp. That $5 billion juggernaut is going to take some stopping (especially when you see that people have discovered they can make a lot of money on the back of the carbon trade) so it's only common sense that the general perception will still be in favour of the "consensus". That does not mean the consensus is right, which seems to be the hardest fact for people to have to grapple with. Every scientist on the the planet could get a theory wrong, and be proved so by a single scientist in the future. It's very unlikely, but not impossible - which is why we should always keep an open mind and STOP shutting down arguements with this consensus nonsense. With regard to the IPCC version of feedback, it is so strong that in order to fit the model to CO2 levels seen in prehistory you would be looking at surface temps in excess of 80C in the time of the dinosaurs (2000ppm) and by the time you reached the Precambrian (5000ppm) you could melt lead! Before anybody even dares to mention Venus please note these facts: Venus is closer to the Sun, has an atmosphere 90 times the density of Earth with 96% CO2. The clouds are composed of sulphuric acid, which although appear to reflect a lot of visible light are transparent in the infrared (appear black on an infrared photo). Therefore vast amounts of heat pour in and a good deal is then trapped as 96% CO2 at 90 atmospheres is about 300,000 times the warming potential of CO2 on Earth at present. VENUS COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE, but the IPCC seem to indicate so with their models and therefore have to be wrong because they can't reproduce the observed past.

Yep, I've read it - on my scale of 1 to 10 for alarmism it easily clears Al's AIT and looks to be heading for a low Earth orbit. The amount of increased energy to melt all the ice would require such a marked increase in temperature you would have to burn all the fossil fuel reserves in 5 years - even by IPCC forcing estimations, and they lie way at the upper end of assumptions. Even then you would have run out of fuel so by the time the ice reacted all the CO2 would be being sucked up by gigantic Cambrian like plants that would be just loving it! Basically the sun would suddenly need to switch on and pull a surprise record solar cycle (from it's present total lack of activity, a big ask) and keep it there and then, in about 2000 years, all the ice just MIGHT melt. Even Frank Bruno could get out of the way of that punch, bless 'im <_<

This is inherently wrong - CO2 reacted to temperature differences and not the other way around - this has been demonstrated time and time again and to continue to state CO2 is a primary driver of temperature is enought to get an F in climatology in my book. The radiative forcing of these changes in CO2 concentration would not lead to these kind of temperature changes and glaciation is far more complex a subject than just the concentration of one gas in the atmosphere dropping below some arbitary picked out of the air figure. The location of Antarctica is probably more relevant in locking a huge amount of ice at the south pole away from ocean currents than CO2 is on the global climate - "Earth's air conditioner", but the Sun holds the trump card across the whole of history.

Assuming they have one for stating the bleedin' obvious. <_< The logarithmic nature of absorbtion to concentration is Beer's Law according to my notes, I can even remember the ensuing comments - ah the good times.... I think it's the recognised amount of forcing that is the debate and the ability of some GWers to state it's logarithmic therefore even a small rise is bad doesn't help when they have their graph upside down. The Idso observations of nature forcing scale is some order of magnitude lower than the IPCC interpretation of the forcing effect of an increase in CO2, therefore managing to take something benign and make it scary. The statement of 350ppm as a "safe" maximum is completely ludicrous when you think that commercial greenhouses have their atmosphere at 1000ppm to promote growth. Seems to me if the actual forcing effect can be nailed and is nearer Idso than IPCC then the best thing for the planet is to keep burning fossil fuels (scrubbed for pollutants of couse to just let CO2 through), not for any temperature effect but to greatly increase plant growth and help feed the world. Flame jacket set to maximum

But the answer isn't simple, they never are.... As temperature increases the sea can hold less CO2 so actually expells it to the atmosphere, but increasing tempertaure and CO2 concentration cause vigourous plant growth, taking in more CO2. Conversely as the temperature drops the plants take in less CO2, but the cooling ocean absorbs more. The amount of CO2 in the air is generally a function of the temperature of the ocean - more when the temperature is higher, so the answer to your question is completely temperature related and therefore my answer here is about as much use to you as a chocolate fireguard Sorry.

OK, rewind for a minute regarding 350 because I need somebody to help me out here as my Physics degree appears to be failing me (along with the rest of my brain but that's another story). From what I understand the function of CO2 concentration and temperature is logarithmic, which is widely stated and often cited as potential for "runaway" greenhouse effect - not that I am alledging any of you susbcribe to that theory . However going back over my atmospheric papers from when I was looking to be a meteorologist (before I realised there was more money in computers) the actual relationship is INVERSELY logarithmic - in other words the more CO2 you put into the atmosphere the less sensitivity the atmosphere has to it. On that basis the first 20ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere has more effect on temperature than the next 400ppm, and therefore an increase to 620ppm by 2150 - as espoused by some climate models - would have less forcing effect than the rise from 290ppm to today's current levels. If this is the case then the greenhouse effect is self regulating, which explains why levels of 2000ppm in the time of the dinosaurs didn't cook the planet. The fact that it was warmer would therefore be due to solar irradiance and different continent distribution. Certainly Pangaea must have been massively hot in its interior, several thousand km from any ocean - skewing the entire planetary average. I've done a bit of a calculation on that basis - taking a rise from 380ppm to 420ppm by 2030 as a base the extra 40ppm would reduce emission from the Stratosphere to space by 0.4watts/m2. Converting this to temperature using Idso (1998) - 0.1C per watt/m2 - equates to a temperature rise of 0.04C. Even a rise to 620ppm would only add another 0.16C. Therefore on that basis, the basis of the INVERSELY logarithmic nature of CO2 concentration to temperature the entire AGW due to CO2 debate is hogwash. That just leaves AGW on land due to UHI, land use, etc - which seems to make sense. An entire hypothesis tipped upside down because of a mathmatical error akin to the famous minus sign that caused an Apollo rocket to crash. Can't be that easy, can it? I'll not clear a space on my mantlepiece for my Nobel just yet.....

It is the NOAA that define the ratings for a station and Watts just takes the photographs and interprets those ratings. He has no actual evidence of the actual magnitude of the errors, I'm not sure that is the point of his excercise, but you have to admit there are a lot of very badly maintained and poor sited instruments out there and they form the base data for the climate models - that's got to be just a little bit scary, hasn't it? Which satellites show the same trend as land surface records? Everything I've seen shows a near flat satellite record conflicting with the upward land surface measurement trend.

Hence the reason for this link http://www.climatescienceinternational.org...=view&id=66 I don't have a comparison list of scientists who formed the consensus view for the IPCC, don't happen to have a link to anything like that do you, or if not you anybody else scanning this thread? It would be interesting to see and also if any names appear on both lists (indicating a shift of viewpoint)!

Wasn't getting at you , just trying to nail a point by debate.

And therefore can't you see how weak the word consensus is now becoming? The teachers are to strike based on a 'consensus' vote of 3-1, yet only 10% of teachers (or was it NUT members, which is even less?) actually took part in that vote, so only 7.5% of teachers(members) are forming a 'consensus' view. This was latched on to with typical duplicity by the Education minister this morning, failing to complete the point that he only has a job because 35.3% of 61.4% (i.e. 21.67%) of the electorate actually voted for his party. On that basis if the 'electorate' are every climate and related scientist on Earth, did we ever have a consensus or is it just another case of spin?

Totally agree, and yet to sit in front of the TV listening to AL Gore and his buddies you get the distinct impression they mean 100% agree - how many people reach for a dictionary these days? Everybody I've talked to seems to take "consensus" to mean the arguement is over (in fact David Milliband actually SAID that on TV, so even Govt ministers don't read dictionaries ). Do you think we should be concentrating on English education before climate education?

It often seems to be said that anybody against the current climate change theory does not have the relevent knowledge that the "consensus" opinion is based on and therefore has no validity in their arguments. There have been many reports of climate scientists being threatened with having their funding or even tenures removed if they contradicted the current doctrine, but good science needs people on both sides of a debate. We have ever more vocal expressions of opposition to the postition taken by the lastest IPCC report, such as: http://www.climatescienceinternational.org...37&Itemid=1 Most notably the endorsers of this statement have an ever increasing base of people whose specialisation enables them to have a very valid input to any discussion on climate change: http://www.climatescienceinternational.org...=view&id=66 Usually these people have been discounted as being on the oil companies' payroll, often by other scientists, which is a very poor development as scientists are supposed to question other's work with their own findings, not dissmissive statements - this just smacks of politicisation and devalues science across the board. Which returns me to my question as the title of this subject, just when do we no longer have a consensus?

Just how accurate are land temperatures? http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/...tations-update/ I've no problem with SST being warm (or the 13th warmest to quote the NOAA) as we've been in a warming trend since the end of the 19th century and the heat inertia of the oceans is massive. What do the satellites say?

Above all it would seem this is a very good contender for the cause for any AGW, but of course what percentage of any warming or other climatic event AGW accounts for is where the debate actually seems to lie. Even gravitational theory is constantly tested after hundreds of years and if it was found to be wrong it wouldn't mean we end up on the ceiling so it just goes to show how much more there is for us to know. I think the word consensus is actually misused. The media would have you think it means "everybody (in this case all scientists) agrees and therefore there is no other interpretation", whereas is actually means "a general agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action". That does not make anything coming from a consensus the only truth, as the media would have us believe, and allows for the individual members of that group to change their mind when faced with new data. However the slapping down of contrarian views on AGW does not fit this definition.

With Antarctica breaking its ice limit record last year and looking to smash that record again this year, and every possibility of the Arctic pack breaking up in a spectacular way like it did last year, what does anybody think about the likelihood of a paradox forming where Antactica produces a much deeper cold and continues to extend its ice pack whereas the Arctic becomes ice free away the from major supply of land ice like Greenland? Because of susceptibility of Artic ice to ocean currents, which would melt it way faster than an increase in air temperature because of the vast difference in heat input, it looks like something like this could become a real possibility. Where would you see this pushing the climate change debate? Have I asked too many questions?

Just shows you should always proof read - should be cubic feet not cubic metres, a heck of difference! And I just read another report that quotes it as only 9 trillion Ho hum, it's a lot anyway and Germany's lack of willingness to exploit this reserve and their winding down of coal and nuclear energy generation has significantly shifted the balance of power to Russia, who have managed to stall NATO expansion by co-opting western European countries to oppose it without making any military threat. I believe this may have been the first time economic power has been so effective in influencing military strategy in Europe. It's obviously a good thing compared to the alternative and in a way serves the US and allied powers in Europe right for missing their chance to bring Russia into the fold after the cold war instead of humiliating them and leading to a resurgence of nationalism and renewed vigour with their energy reserves.

OK, OK. The point was 2000ppm did not cause a runaway greenhouse effect - the climate did not rise up and kill the dinosaurs - and not even the most ardent doom monger has suggested we will go anywhere near that level of CO2. I think CO2 is constantly over stated in relation to temperature and that generally a warmer and more CO2 rich atmosphere is more beneficial than harmful. However I keep seeing plenty of doom laden predictions just based on a doubling of CO2 from 1990 levels - not even 700ppm and yet readings of up to 500ppm have been taken in the chemical assay records from way before the last quarter century warming cycle (they just didn't make it into the IPCC reports that managed to omit anything above 290ppm before 1950) On a human front there have been many reports headlined that up to 2,000 people may die in the UK from heat related conditions if we warmed up, but there is never so much effort made on pointing out the studies that show COLD related deaths dropping by 20,000 under the same conditions. Oh for a crystal ball B)

Well yes and no. Forward projections must contain a reasonable margin for error and that margin is cone shaped as any error close in is amplified over time. If you posted a prediction for this autumn with 80% confidence and hit it you'd be pretty proud, so why is 20% margin over a DECADE way out there, especially when we're expected to take these models and make decisions for the rest of the century? Yes, the Met office got it about right on Western Europe this winter, pity absolutely nobody saw the deep freeze that affected the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Please point me to a post if I'm wrong because I saw nothing about record breaking cold in the US, best skiing season for 20 years, late spring starts. But I do see lots of crap about spring being early in the UK again (despite it still snowing) although I see no evidence for this compared to last year - plants and trees are pretty much in line with where I remember them to come out and the birds and their food have synchronised perfectly in my garden - so I don't expect the mass extinction of blue tits due to lack of caterpillers like what was reported last year.